Moss and Fangio’s F1 Mercedes makes history

| 1 Feb 2025
Classic & Sports Car – Moss and Fangio’s F1 Mercedes makes history

A 1954 Mercedes-Benz W196R raced by Stirling Moss and Juan Manuel Fangio today achieved a price of €51,155,000 (£42,757,906/US$53,007,616), making it the most valuable Grand Prix car ever sold.

This means it is the second most expensive car to be sold, bettered only by the 1955 Mercedes-Benz 300SLR Uhlenhaut Coupé that went for €135,000,000 (c£114m/$142m) on 5 May 2022.

Today’s event was a standalone auction, held at the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart – it was sold in the same room as the Uhlenhaut Coupé and both sales were with RM Sotheby’s.

The Mercedes had been donated to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum in the USA back in 1965 by the then Daimler-Benz AG, and was sold to raise funds for that museum’s work.

Classic & Sports Car – Moss and Fangio’s F1 Mercedes makes history

Stirling Moss driving this Mercedes-Benz W196R on the banking at Monza in 1955

This is the first time a Streamliner-bodied Mercedes-Benz W196R has been offered for private ownership.

Chassis number 00009/54 attracted bidders from around the world, resulting in a fierce contest both in person and via telephone, before the gavel fell at that eye-watering price of €51,155,000.

This car’s race debut was on 30 January 1955, when Fangio drove it at the non-championship Formula Libre Buenos Aires Grand Prix.

At that point it wore an open-wheeled body and this was a chance for the team to test its new, 3-litre M196 engine.

Classic & Sports Car – Moss and Fangio’s F1 Mercedes makes history

The Mercedes’ M196 3-litre engine

The Buenos Aires race comprised a pair of 30-lap heats and the driver with the fastest total aggregate time would be declared the winner.

In this car, Fangio took pole and passed Moss for the lead, but come the chequer was 10.5 secs behind the Ferrari 625 of Giuseppe ‘Nino’ Farina.

Fangio claimed the runner-up spot in the second heat, too, Moss taking victory, but Fangio’s overall time meant that this car won at its first race meeting.

Classic & Sports Car – Moss and Fangio’s F1 Mercedes makes history

Chassis number 00009/54 has been in the USA since 1965

For the Italian Grand Prix at Monza on 11 September 1955, Fangio and Moss both wanted to campaign long-wheelbase W196s clothed in streamlined bodywork.

The car allocated to Fangio was a spare Streamliner, on an original, long-wheelbase chassis from the previous year.

For Moss, team manager Alfred Neubauer requested that a Streamliner had to be delivered to the circuit as soon as possible and it was this spare long-wheelbases chassis, number 00009/54, that received the required bodywork and was sent to Italy.

Classic & Sports Car – Moss and Fangio’s F1 Mercedes makes history

Moss and Fangio have raced this Silver Arrow Mercedes

Moss and Fangio’s Streamliners lined up for the ’55 Italian Grand Prix with Mercedes-Benz teammates Karl Kling and Piero Taruffi piloting open-wheeled versions of the W196R.

Fangio was on pole, Moss, in this car, numbered 16, started second. Moss took the lead on the ninth lap, but it was not to be.

He was forced to pit for a replacement windscreen and later a failing piston caused him to retire, although he set the fastest lap.

The race was won by Fangio, Taruffi second.

Classic & Sports Car – Moss and Fangio’s F1 Mercedes makes history

This Mercedes-Benz W196R is now owned by a private collector

Mercedes-Benz retired its W196Rs in October 1955 and, at first, all 10 remained at the marque’s Stuttgart museum.

In time, four were donated to museums around the world, this car presented at the 1965 Indy 500 race and officially gifted to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Foundation.

“The Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum has been honoured to care for and share the W196R within our museum, but the sum it has achieved today is a transformative contribution to increase our endowment and long-term sustainability as well as the restoration and expansion of our collection,” said Joe Hale, President, The Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum.

Images: Mercedes-Benz AG


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